I'm leavin' this place

Hey folks...
I've decided to leave these diggs and head on over to my new blog at improperly forward.
Come on over.  It's super fabulous.  ; )

who wants to go swimming?

You're not going to freaking believe this.  I was sitting out in the "office" (aka: a corner of the garage where Hubbs has been reduced to working since 700 children took over my house) last night just perusing the inter-clubs and noticed it was around 10:00.  Since my butt was numb from sitting so long, I thought I should maybe just head up to bed and call it a night.  Nothing productive going on around here anyway. Hubbs must have had the same idea since he just headed in the house too.

Suddenly he appears, eyes as wide as errr... Canadian Bacon and yells "get up! we have a flood!"

"FREAKING A, WHAT?!?!" (or something similar)... followed by "WHAT THE SHIT?"  and "Well for FUCK'S SAKE" seemed to be the only help I had to offer.   (See there, I got in all my favorite expletives right away for you.  Now that's over.) 

Long story short... we spent the next two and a half hours dirtying every damn clean towel (which I had finally just washed) in the house mopping up toilet water and whatever else I do NOT want to think about.  The mess is still huge and I really don't even want to talk about it, okay?  I'm just not ready yet.

My favorite part of the evening, which I have saved for last just for you, was the moment my darling Hubbs looked at me with a rich snub of disgust on his face and asked, "Well, who was the last person in this bathroom?

Nothing, and I do mean no. thing.  gave me more evil satisfaction than to look him square in the Canadian Bacons and reply, "Ummm... YOU!"

*I mean who else has the power to clog a toilet to the point it floods our whole downstairs?*

Pathetic Advertisement of Myself.

 I should start out by saying (and this should be glaringly obvious already) that I am in rare form today.  Tomorrow is the first day of a five, count them five, day weekend for me and I'm feeling a little scrappy.  It's a hoot. Hallelujah for Independence Day (not the movie, the day- the movie creeped me out.)

So, some of you may remember a day when I used to write a blog pretty much every day.  Oh man those were fun times.  Then I started working and had a mid-life crisis and almost died three times in one year... and the list goes on and on and on some more.  So, I stopped writing.  For a long time.  And ever since I have said "Oh, I'm going to start writing again..." and blah blah b.l.a.h.  Well folks, this is IT.

I have been approached a couple of times by a social networking site for bloggers.  They too think I should get back on the horse.  (My words, not theirs.)  They thought it was awesome that I had 10,000 blog hits that one time.  They want me to do it again so they can create a cash cow.  So, since I  have a laid back summer with only three kids rather than my usual 17,000 I think I should too.  And then I'll get really famous and they'll fly me all over the country for the big blogger conventions and I'll get swag and I'll have little advertisements in my margins that pay me money and it'll be AWESOME.  Oh, wait a sec... I mean, it'll be really fun to document the funny happenings of my life for all of you to read.

There's a lot of you that always tell me you want me to do the blog thing again.  And some new friends that claim you log into your facebook just to see the funny postings I've made.   I'm talking to you ladies... (and you too to the 2.5 men that read my crap).  It's time to put your money (not really) where your mouth is and support me in this little venture.  It's going to take you a few seconds to subscribe as my follower on here once I get everything set up and that'll be that.  Then, if you really do read my craptastic musings, you can comment every now and again and prove that you're a real person and not 54 different accounts I've set up myself to make it look like I have followers.  Get it?

Please don't do that now.  I am going to come up with a FABULOUS-O new name and switch blog hosts since this one is the K-Mart of hosts and then I'll do some tweaking(not to be confused with tweeting).  Once that's done, I'll have a grand opening and we'll have a party and cocktails and celebrate.  It'll be super.

Oh- and if you're my mother or my mother-in-law... just pretend you never read this because it makes me nervous when I swear like a sailor and talk about sex and know that you're reading it.  Just don't ever talk to me about this again.  OK?  ok.

Now, I have to go come up with a name.  I'm thinking jabber jaws.  Or lady jabber jaws.  (My cousin used to call my Grammy this when we were little because she jabbered all the time.  It'll be like a tribute to her.  hahahaahaha)
Seriously, I need help with a whitty, quippy, cut to the quick name. Any ideas?  Maybe I'll share my swag with you once I get some as your reward.  Maybe.

we don't need no stinking helmets

I was a little conflicted today about the oh so important topic of bicycle helmets.  I know I'm really going out on a limb by admitting this, but my kids rarely wear their helmets.  They really only ride on our quiet, kid-friendly street where a total of 42 children ride bikes from  sun up to sun down sans helmet and so far no one has spilled their brains on the sidewalk.  Anytime they venture further that that, they are expected to put theirs on or else!  (ahem. uh-huh.right.)

This is how it all began...
Some people I know asked me a couple of questions about helmets for my kids, and I quietly started to seethe regarding the neurotic nature of {some people}.  Would they send their children through life in a freaking bubble if it were legal in all 52 states?   Good grief!  Then I realized that maybe I should pop a Midol  and investigate why I had such strong feelings about the subject.

So what else is a girl to do when life's haunting questions need to be answered?  Post a facebook poll, of course.  Duh.  I was a bit surprised at the responses I received.  Not so much by the unanimous response of "HELL YES YOU WEAR THE HELMET!" but more at who some of the "hell yeses"  came from.

Here's something you may not know about me yet: I am a super, to a fault, laid back mom.  I don't stress over skinned knees, broken arms, 104 degree fevers or kids that sing along to the radio and know that certain songs bleep out the word bitch.  "The world is a big, nasty place and you might as well learn some of the pitfalls while you're under the safe, cozy warmth of my wing." is my unspoken motto.  Apparently up until today I didn't stress over head injuries either.

But, I'm getting a little ahead of myself.  So I'm reading my facebook replies and remembering previous conversations about the ever-loathed (at my house) bicycle helmet and getting kind of pissed- not at the responses, but at something that was just bugging me, making me question myself.

Here's something else you may not know about me:  I hate, no, HATE moms/parents that act or believe certain ways because that is the "good *perfect* mom" thing to do. Those moms that put themselves on a 2-year waiting list for the best preschool when they can hardly afford their groceries each month because that will put them in the {good family} group just make my skin crawl. Similarly so, moms that make their kids wear bike helmets because they are afraid of what the other moms will think of them equally give me hives around my neck.  (seriously, i'm itching right now just thinking about them.)  I think I was worried about being one of those moms.

So I was getting that itchy feeling all while I'm just "listening" to some women that I really respect tell me why they want their kids to wear helmets, growing more and more itchy.  WHY??  (Aside from the aforementioned "lunar cycle" that we won't talk about again.)  I'm ranting and raving about how much our kids hate the helmet and it would totally change pedaling around the 5-house-radius they are allowed to ride for them, and they are too hot in the summer and blah blah blah and...  Then Mr. Know-It-All chimes in with his cut to the quick logic that always gets me.  "If your kids had an accident tomorrow and became vegetables you'd kill yourself."  Well shit.

Taking a moment to truly ask myself why I was feeling so pissy about said helmet, I had to admit this one, gut-wrenching truth to me:  I know my kids need to wear the damn thing, but I am too lazy to fight the fight.  So I  turn to Mr.  Know-It-All (I honestly say that in a good way) and say, "So, we're deciding right now that our kids have to wear their helmets no matter what then, huh?"

YEP.

{Thanks friends, for saving my kids' brains!)

Craptasticly Awesome

[Craptastic]
1. in a good sense, the quality of being so crappy that the object is humorous or desireable

2. in a bad sense, extremely crappy

Here's some completely random craptastic thoughts for you.  I'm considering instituting Craptastic Thursdays for all the world to have the chance to read my craptastic thoughts.  I promise to stop using the word craptastic every other syllable after today.

• I've never seen it, but the movie Boondock Saints must have been something else for those brilliant writers to even consider making a sequel that is this freaking craptastic.  Hubby is sitting here watching it while I type and is giggling like an idiotic 7th grader, and all I can do is shake my head at the absolute idiocy that is creeping through the airwaves toward my brain.  Not since Speed 2 has there been such a sphinctacular display of sequel genius.

• Happy Hour Bar Food falls into the craptastic category {see definition #1 above} for a few reasons.  It is indeed so crappy it's good.  Grease + Grease + a sudsy beer = a few trips to the bathroom.  Note to self: visit happy hour after a 14 hour road trip to cure whatever ails ya.
  
• A brief disruption in high speed wireless internet (for a couple of days!) is completely craptastic.  Those silly neighbors that don't secure their wireless connection are a godsend.  No silly, I'm not admitting on the world wide web that I'm stealing bandwidth. I'm just sayin'... those guys are silly.

Okay, I think I'm done.  This craptastic flu I've been fighting seems to have shut down all of my "funny vibes" at around 10:15.  I must need to go to bed.

Nekkid is Always Good.

My kids may as well have been raised by nudists. I swear if they have a choice, they'll go naked. Or should I say "nekkid" as Jordan so aptly puts it. Elle is pushing seven years old and she's still okay with nekkid. If it's just us around the house, she's usually sporting a tank top and some undies. Jordan is a big fan of undies or maybe, just maybe, boxers.

It was FREEZING in our house this morning, and in a last minute dash I had to take Sis to school because she decided to watch cartoons instead of eat breakfast. This is a whole other story. At any rate, I told Jordan to get on some clothes because "Nekkid in the freezing cold is not so good." He quickly responded with a look of disgust... "MOM, nekkid is always good!"

Uh, DUH. Gah.

Here are some precious little tid-bits that were spoken to me today.  (All by people under the age of 4 and less than 4 feet tall.)

"Uh... I just told you that.  DUH. "

"Gah, what is YOUR problem?"

"The baby is spitting his food back at you because you are being so bossy to me.  I'm bigger than you so I am the boss."

"You need to figure it out, Mom.  It's really not that hard.  Just make a good dishishum." (that's decision.  and that sounds just like his dad.)

The list goes on and on.  The important thing is I did not lose my cool and I did not kill anyone today.  That alone should earn me a cookie.  Or a glass of wine.  I'm gonna go with the glass of wine.  

I should have said this earlier; but I didn't, so I'll say it now.  I do like these kids.  And I love watching them everyday.  I just can't believe the things children will say- not just these children- all children.  What the heck is wrong with me as a mom that my kid thinks it's okay to tell me to "figure it out".   Furthermore, what kinds of things is he hearing me say that gives him these kinds of ideas?  Oh right, I forgot... he sounds just like his dad.  Looks like I'm off the hook.  Teeheehee.